The Saffron Gate (56 page)

^{When I nodded, Mena handed me two tin pails, and she carried two as well. Inside were several rough cloths she called
kese,
indicating that they were for scrubbing ourselves, as well as large rolled sheets of fabric
—
fotas
— that she demonstrated wrapping around herself. I knew the Muslims' belief that it was sinful to gaze upon another's naked body, so assumed that even in the baths we would keep these around ourselves, and I was relieved. I knew the baths would be segregated, but I couldn't imagine how I'd feel bathing publicly.}

^{There were more thick cloths, surely for drying.}

^{Mena held a container of a sticky black substance to my nose. I smelled an unlikely combination of olive oil and roses, and Mena mimicked washing her hands: soap.}

^{Carrying our pails and with Najeeb leading the way, Mena and I walked through the medina. Within ten minutes we stopped in front of an unmarked entrance and climbed up stone steps, hollow in the centre from generations of feet. There was a half-hidden door, so narrow that as I followed Mena through it my pails clanged against the frame. It was dim inside, with a strong odour of eucalyptus. The air was hot and steamy. An unveiled woman wearing a plain white kaftan came towards us.}

^{Mena gave her two coins, and the woman called out. Two other women, their
fotas
tied around their chests and falling below their knees, came through a doorway towards us. Their hair was hidden beneath white wraps twisted on top of their heads.}

^{'Tayebas
,' Mena said, and I thought they must be helpers or assistants of some kind. We followed them through a honeycomb of dark, tiled rooms. There were only a few guttering lamps here and there, giving the whole atmosphere a wavering, netherworld sense. The walls were wet with moisture, and all around was the sound of dripping and splashing, and the humidity made my nose run.}

^{We passed a room and a blast of heat struck me; I peered inside but could only make out shadowy figures stoking fires with dry palm leaves.}

^{We were led into a room filled with wooden cubicles, some empty and some holding women's clothing. Mena immediately began to undress, removing first her
haik,
then her
dfina
and then her kaftan, placing them into one of the empty cubicles. She wore a white cotton petticoat; she pulled it off and stood in a long-sleeved singlet and thick baggy trousers, like pantaloons, with embroidered lace at the edges of the legs. I had no idea Moroccan women wore so many layers; how did they bear the heat? Mena turned from me, holding her
fota
to shield herself while she took off the last of her clothes. I did the same as she, wrapping the
fota
around myself and tying it over my chest in the same fashion as the
tayebas
who waited for us.}

^{Then Mena and I again followed the two women, carrying our pails. We went into a large, misty room with high cisterns at one end. There were many women, mostly sitting on the stone floor, scrubbing themselves or being scrubbed by
tayebas.
Very
young naked children crawled or toddled and splashed on the wet floor. I saw a baby of perhaps six months sitting in a bucket, smiling and gurgling as its mother dripped water over it. My
tayeba
urged me to stand near one of the cisterns, and then took one of my pails, filled it with water and poured it over me. I gasped, as it was much hotter than I had expected. She did it again and again, until I was completely wet. Then she filled the pail with hot water, once more, and walked to an empty spot far on the opposite wall. The floor sloped down towards the cisterns, and all the water pooled down into a narrow trough at the foot of the cisterns. The
tayeba
indicated that I was to sit on the floor. My skin was slick from the water and steam. As soon as I sat down, the
tayeba
began to scrub me with the rough
kese
she took from my empty pail. I held my breath; it hurt. She scrubbed and scrubbed, holding up my arms as if I were a small child, pushing my head forward so she could get at the back of my neck. She scrubbed until I saw layers of dead skin rolling off my arms and legs, and my skin was reddened.}

^{She kept rinsing me as she worked: scrubbing and rinsing, scrubbing and rinsing, going back to fill the pail when it was empty. Finally she sat down across from me, grabbed my left foot and put it in her lap, and pulled a brick-like stone from somewhere within the folds of her
fota.
She scraped my sole with such intensity that I flinched. When she was done she picked up my right leg, holding it out against my left, examining it. As she started on my right foot with the stone, she worked less briskly, stopping after only a few seconds, glancing at me and saying something in a questioning tone. I could only guess that she was asking if it hurt this shortened leg to work on it. I shook my head, and she bent over it and scraped with more fervour.}

^{The light was so dim — only a few tiny lamps flickering on the walls — that I really couldn't discern the other figures in the room, although I could make out that a woman beside me was applying some sort of mushy substance to her armpits, and then quickly rinsing it off. I realised the substance somehow removed hair.}

^{Finally my
tayeba
scooped out a handful of the black olive oil and rose soap I'd brought, and lathered me with it. It had the texture of oozing warm butter, and I closed my eyes, relaxing and enjoying the feel of her hands rubbing it all over me, reaching under my
fota
to get at my thighs. She lathered and rinsed, again and again, from my head to my
feet. When there were no more traces of soap, she moved behind me. I felt her hands on my wet hair, and then she was scrubbing my scalp. I reached up and felt a grainy substance like clay smeared on my head. I smelled the bits on my fingers: lavender and, again, roses. When she'd rinsed it all out, she handed me my pails and led me to a second room and left me there.}

^{This room was as hot as the first, but not as steamy. Here women, still wrapped in their
fotas, were
lounging about on the floor, chatting and laughing quietly. I saw then that the
hammam
was more than a ritual bath; it was, in a way, like the roofs, where women could be themselves. In this culture, where men and women moved in different spheres, and outside their homes women were expected to glide silently about, fading into the background, here there was freedom and camaraderie. I found a spot against the wall and spread a sheet from my pail on the warm stone floor and sat on it, my legs straight out in front of me, pushing my wet hair out of my eyes and looking at the women around me
.}

^{Skin tones ranged from pale to tawny to warm brown to rich coffee. I saw deep scars and strange growths and moles and patches of eczema. Every body, it appeared, bore some mark life had left. I looked down at my own body, and suddenly — perhaps for the first time — liked the warm tone of my skin. I also saw that it was rich, and flawless in its texture; I had never seen it as having its own beauty. I had always thought my skin too dark, unattractive in contrast to the pearl and creamy white and alabaster complexions of so many of the Saxons I had always compared myself to in Albany. I ran my hand up and down my own thigh, marvelling at its silky texture after being so intensely scrubbed. Then I rubbed my arms, letting my hands linger on my shoulders.}

^{Nobody paid any attention to me, even with my shortened leg and heavy limp. I was just another woman in a moving sea of females, just another woman whose body demonstrated that she had lived.}

^{Mena appeared and sat beside me. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. She looked at my legs, pointing at the right and talking. I couldn't think how to explain my polio other than the Arabic for
I am a child, very sick.
She nodded, holding up her hair from the back of her neck and showing me a deep, badly healed scar. I understood the word
father,
but she kept saying another word I didn't know, frowning, and I couldn't understand what she was trying to tell me about what had happened to her.}

^{Then she made a sign for rocking a baby, raising her shoulders and nodding at me, and I knew she was asking if I had any children. I looked into her face, and then, for a reason I didn't understand, I nodded, putting my hands on my stomach, and then pointing upwards, hoping she understood what I was demonstrating.}

^{She did. She did the same movement, and held up three fingers.}

^{Three? She'd miscarried three times or had three children die? But she was so young. Instinctively I put my hands on hers, squeezing them. When she squeezed mine back, tears came into my eyes, and then I was crying.}

^{I hadn't shared my loss with anyone — apart from telling Manon, in a cold way, that I'd lost the baby she denied had ever existed. And now, even though I couldn't use words to describe my sadness, it came again, fresh, with Mena. I knew she understood what I felt, and I knew what she must feel. Her eyes filled, and she kept nodding, kept squeezing my hands.}

^{I saw that she cared about me, and suddenly I cared about her, too. I thought of the middle-aged man with the withered arm, her husband, coming to her in the night. I thought of days spent under the watchful eyes of the stern Nawar, with all the power of the first wife in the house, surely not welcoming to a beautiful younger wife.}

^{Where was Mena's family? Did she love her husband, or had she simply been sold to him in an arranged marriage? What had made the deep scar on the back of her neck? Why had she lost three babies? Would she have more? Eventually she let go of my hands, patting my forearm, and I wiped my face with the edge of my
fota.}

^{We sat side by side, our shoulders touching. I felt a deep sense of calm, after crying. How odd, I thought, that I would come halfway round the world to find the only friend — a young Moroccan wife — I'd had since I was sixteen years old.}

^{My tranquillity increased; since the day I told Etienne about the baby I had been so overwhelmed, so unsure of everything, on my confusing, frightening and at times dangerous journey. And yet now that uncertainty was lessening.}

^{I thought of how this new feeling, the feeling of something within me letting go, had begun as I watched Aszulay listen to the bird, and then later, as I lay on the roof in the sun, thinking of Badou and Falida and their expressions as I bought each of them a treat — another book for Badou, the wrap for Falida's hair. I thought of Aszulay, watching me as I laughed in Le Jardin Majorelle, and the whiteness of his teeth in his dark face. I again pictured his expression as he listened to the glorious song of the bird overhead in the courtyard at Sharia Zitoun. I grew drowsy, letting the peacefulness wash over me, and brought up my knees and rested my arms on them, putting my head on my arms and closing my eyes. I think I slept. After a while, Mena spoke, and I looked up. She gestured for me to come, and I went with her to a door leading to a passage; I assumed it would take us back to where we had left our clothing. But it was yet another room, and in this one women lay on the floor or sat on it cross-legged while other women rubbed their skin, pushing and kneading it the way I had kneaded dough to make bread.}